Activities in Italy

36 destinations to explore in Italy.

3043 activities

Italy is a country of cities, and they are not alike. Rome, Florence and Venice each fit into a day on foot; Naples and Palermo ask you to accept their disorder; the north runs at a pace that has little to do with the south.

The high-speed line joining Milan, Bologna, Florence, Rome and Naples is the spine of almost every trip. Anything off it — Puglia, Sicily, the lakes — is done by car or not at all.

Where to go in Italy

Top-rated activities in Italy

Questions about Italy

The Uffizi and the Accademia in Florence, the Vatican Museums and the Borghese in Rome, the Last Supper in Milan — that one weeks ahead — and Pompeii in summer. Nearly all run on timed entry, which means arriving without a ticket is not a wait but a refusal.

August. The heat is real in the central and southern cities, and Italians close up and leave themselves. April to May and September to October are the two windows where weather, opening hours and crowds agree with each other.

At the ancient sites, yes: the Forum, Pompeii, Ostia and the Valley of the Temples are ruins legible only to someone who knows what is missing. In museums a guide mostly buys the time slot. For a city, a two-hour walk on the first day is what makes the rest of the days self-sufficient.